The Contemporary Art Modern Project is pleased to present our latest exhibition: Looking at You Looking at Me, a group exhibition wherein three Miami-based artists from different generations explore the symbiotic relationship between their place in the world and their relationships with themselves. External parties may assume a woman's attention to her image is in vain, but the truth is women are often forced to be hyper-aware because of society’s obsession with ideals and standards of what is woman. The above claim is supported in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, where he states: “a woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping.” Artists Laetitia Adam-Rabel, Silvana Soriano, and Analea Adam-Rabel take the concept of the "female gaze" and approach it in different manners; One portrays the gaze through complex subversion of color and form, another through digitally manipulating images of herself, and the other fantasizing about the girl she is becoming.
In her collages, Silvana Soriano depicts stories with a technique that can be examined as repurposing or redefining. While she is repurposing paper and textile, she is also redefining the space. The uniform but organic shapes give these scenes movement, as if the viewer is able to witness in real time the story or vignette presented. Each presence captures the space and viewer with actual clothing, whether owned by the artist or a loved one, using familiar textures to draw one in. The central figure in Across The Board speaks loudest to a woman's self-perception in a public space. Here, Soriano portrays the silhouette of a woman's back, the reflection of her face and another blurred silhouette standing in front of them. Who is recognizing whom? While bringing the gaze within herself she is not acting in vain but attending to her own image.
As an artist working in a variety of media, from photography and sculpture, to printmaking and painting, Laetitia Adam-Rabel is constantly rediscovering herself. Art is often a therapeutic measure to understand her own feelings and let go. Laeti’s If I Were a Fashion Figure is a collection of designs she created herself using her experiences as a former Parsons student and knowledge of the fashion industry. Soon her desire to embody fashion turned from designing to modeling. After some rejection, it became hard to sit with the image of herself. In IIWAFF 6, she portrays a version of her bare body holding her own perfectly smooth skin. Tapping into the young woman she once was as the woman she currently is, Laeti is also sitting with old versions of herself and accepting them.
Many little girls dream of a version of themselves, which sometimes begins as a mermaid or princess. Analea has been drawing mermaids since she was one; creativity is second nature to her coming from a family of artists. In a short time, an abundance of knowledge and creative intuition has been passed on to her. While she watches and learns art from her mother, she, without knowing it, is taking her mother’s pain and turning it into something new and beautiful. Analea's self portrait shows viewers that at the young age of four, she is already perceiving herself. She and her expressions mean something and through art she is able to share a version of herself that she imagines.
Women are constantly being perceived by others while living in a society where they are told what to wear, how to feel and even their sexual orientation. Our identities are constantly shape-shifting, transforming from child to woman, friend to mother, all based around how we look to others and what we can do for them rather than ourselves. At the end of the day, once we strip away all of the -isms, we go to bed with perceptions of our innerselves; past, present, future and all.
Curated by Chloe Fabien
